A New Vision for America
Previous generations were inspired by expansions, reconstructions, the prospect of an American Superpower, space races, the American Dream, and victories over sinister autocrats abroad. We had profound leaders on both sides of the isle uniting us all to tackle insurmountable odds together.
Since the Cold War ended, America got fat and complacent. In my lifetime, I cannot point to a single unified purpose for America (except perhaps the unrealistic ruin of terrorism). While Millennials are blamed for a great many things, we were not responsible for the visionless world we were born into. Now, it will be our job as age gets the best of Generation X to take the stage and paint a picture for the future that all Americans can stand behind. If you take nothing else from this post, take this: we need a new vision for America, we need it fast, and we must all demand one from our leaders.
One possible vision
America promised Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. To have Life, humans require air, water, food, clothing, shelter and sleep to survive. Soon, we shall add electricity and Internet to this list. Without meeting these basic needs for Life, we do not stand a chance at Liberty or Happiness.
When drafting the Declaration of Independence, the Committee of Five likely did not hold life’s metabolic and environmental requirements as “self-evident…unalienable Rights” “endowed by their Creator.” Back then, you still farmed for yourself, sourced water for yourself, sewed your own clothes, and built your own house…or had slaves do it for you. It was dog eat dog and no governor would ever make such an unrealistic promise as to provide for the daily survival of his citizens.
Now, most of us do none of these things for ourselves. We buy food and clothing from the store, drink water supplied by our municipalities, and rent or own homes previously built. Our survival no longer depends on our own hands, but on the hands of others. We can no longer realistically be held accountable for our own survival. Whereas before we had a direct connection to the land and its bounties, our connection is now several steps removed by those who produce the products we need, those who distribute the products we need, those who sell the products we need, those who pay us for unrelated labor so that we can afford the products we need, and the financial institutions who hold our money. What was once a simple life of living off the land evolved into a complex supply chain with a lot of room for error and a great deal of added costs. Our fates tangle with the whims of others and markets. To live off the land in the traditional manner became a luxury. Now, I look out the window of my urban condo every day and see congregations of very burdened souls who cannot get jobs for a whole host of valid reasons and therefore cannot afford the means to their survival. Living off the land for them means begging for food and shelter lest they have to steal or fashion a shanty of cardboard to sleep through the night in the rain. The gatekeepers to Life, Liberty and Happiness will not let them through regardless of whether they “deserve it” or not. It makes no sense.
None of us asked to be here, to be born forth unto this Earth. We certainly did not pick our parents, hometown, socioeconomics, genetic handicaps, or the era into which we were born. We did not sign up for the burdens of survival. And for that reason, we should all seriously reevaluate material rights in this country. In America, providing for physiological needs could be a right, not a privilege. And that, my friends, is worth fighting for.
Easier said than done, of course, and we would not be the first to try. Skeptics would immediately invoke the inefficiencies of Communism, the cost of Socialism or a whole number of failed experiments past. That said, we’re in a new world now and play by new of rules. Technology continues to revolutionize the creation and delivery of our needs. Before long, we shall have far more sustainable infrastructure providing for our needs at radically reduced costs with compelling efficiency. When energy can be harnessed at zero marginal cost through renewable methods, we could in our lifetimes feasibly provide food and water to all for little or no cost.
In the nearer term, we should strive to evaluate different economic and welfare models to meet the vision of providing for every citizen all their basic needs. I am by no means an economist, but love my spreadsheets and playing with numbers. The average cost of living in the United States in 2016 minus taxes was $1,998 per month for a single person, $1,434 per month for an individual married person, and between $397 and $1,363 per dependent child. Looking only at food, healthcare, housing, and other necessities, we’re down to a cost of $1,117 to $1,505 per month per adult. Very rough napkin math suggests that, for a population of 325 million Americans of which 120 million are married and 75 million children under 18, we’re looking at a price tag of roughly $4.2 trillion per year to provide for everyone’s basic needs. Don’t get me wrong, that’s really expensive; the combined net worth of the 2016 class of the 400 richest Americans was only $2.4 trillion. Social Security, which will cease to be sustainable at the current rate of scheduled benefits after the program’s combined reserves fully deplete by 2034, paid out $897 billion to 60 million retired, dependent of retired, survivor of deceased, or disabled Americans in 2015. The program only brought in $920 billion in paid payroll taxes from the earnings of 169 million people in 2015, 78% shy of what we’d need to provide for everyone’s basic needs. The Social Security reserves of $2.8 trillion wouldn’t even last us eight months. Even reducing what would effectively be a Universal Basic Income payout to Social Security’s current average threshold of $1,245 per month to adults would only bring us down to $3.74 trillion—still 75% shy.
We would need to overhaul many other controversial welfare programs to reduce burden while dramatically increasing revenues and imposing accountability mechanisms for payout to keep a Universal Basic Income program in check. If it was going to be easy, someone would have already figured it out. Many thought leaders today have proposed bridging the gap with taxes on automation and robots destined to displace a high number of jobs, but that might not be enough still. It will take a very special balance of reducing the cost of providing for our needs through innovation, finding a way to tax the displacement of jobs that formerly paved the foundation for our economy, and achieving a dynamic cashflow through our Federal Reserves to meet these ambitious vision. Timing will be everything.
Difficult? Yes. Impossible? No. We can do anything if we work together and want it badly enough. A nation where everyone is truly free to focus on each other and the future rather than themselves and survival today could be a great nation indeed.
